Loew regrets telling Goetze ‘show you’re better than Messi’

BERLIN: Germany coach Joachim Loew has said he regrets telling Mario Goetze to ‘show the world you’re better than (Lionel) Messi’ during the Brazil 2014 final as the midfielder has since struggled to live up to his billing as a World Cup winner.

Goetze, 25, has been left out of the squad for 2018 World Cup, which kicks off on June 14 in Russia, after an erratic season with Borussia Dortmund.

Loew says he feels partly responsible for the pressure the struggling Goetze has been under to prove he is still the player who won the World Cup for Germany nearly four years ago.

“That sentence was a spontaneous idea,” said Loew at an event in Berlin on Friday.

“Whether this was good in hindsight, I do not know. In that moment, you don’t think about things that could happen afterwards.

“I made the mistake of making the sentence public afterwards.”

Loew uttered the immortal words to Goetze shortly before the midfielder ran on in the 88th minute of the final against Argentina at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana with the score goalless.

Goetze, who was only 22 during the Brazil 2014 finals, wrote himself into World Cup folklore when his chest-and-volley goal in the 113th minute of the final won Germany the title.

Superstar Lionel Messi had to settle for a runners-up medal with his Argentina team after losing 1-0 as Germany lifted the trophy.

However, since then Goetze has struggled for form following injury and illness in his two seasons back at Borussia Dortmund after an unhappy three-year stint with Bayern Munich.

Loew says the 2017/18 campaign has ‘not been his (Goetze’s) season’ and admits it was a hard choice leaving the Dortmund playmaker out of Germany’s extended 27-man World Cup squad, which was named last Tuesday.